Transfer the Bullies

The Swedish Government has suggested a new law that will enable headteachers to remove bullies from their school. Newspaper Dagens Nyheter publishes an article about this today.

To me the most astonishing about this is that schools aren’t allowed to do this already. I was a bullied child, and I know what constant abuse does to a young person. After a while, the bad treatment becomes an integrated part of one’s self and you begin to think that you really are no good. The victim adjusts to the oppressor that way.

People who never suffered bullying cannot comprehend the enormous impact it has. I think that explain why one in three headteachers say no to the proposed legislation. According to the DN article, most of them argue that moving bullies will not solve the problem; only transfer it to some other school. That may be true in a sense, but they forget two things. Firstly, the bullies need their friends. To get admiration and status from other group members is essential to most bullies. Secondly, what happens when bullies aren’t transferred to other schools is that the bullied are. When the abuse gets too severe and it becomes a matter of life or death, most responsible parents make sure their children attend some other school instead. That is what happened in my case. No one showed any interest in helping me except my parents. Unfortunately, not everybody has parents able to sacrifice time and money as my parents did.